SESSION 4: EXERCISES FOR DISCUSSION AND FINAL TASK
2. EXERCISES FOR DISCUSSION
2.1 DOWN THE MINE: What would be the most difficult thing and How would you overcome it?
- Missing Family
- Fearing Death
- Cleanliness
- Boredom
- Health
- The Other Miners
2.2 QUALITIES: What qualities are most important for the miners? Rank them from most important to least important:
- A sense of humour
- Physical strength
- Spirit
- Resourcefulness
- Intelligence
- A sense of camaraderie
- Mental Strength
- Having hope
2.3 CHILE MINERS: Spend one minute writing down all of the different words you associate with the Chile miners.
2.4 THE CHILE MINERS DISCUSSION:
a. How and how long have you been following this story?
b. Should mining be banned? To what extend is mining profitable?
c. Are you surprised this story attracted such a huge TV audience?
d. How do you feel by the fact that this rescue became priority number 1 in Chile?
e. What do you think of the Chilean president´s words after the rescue?
f. How did the pictures of the rescued miners make you feel?
g. What do you think the miners are thinking right now? Do you think they are surprised with having become heroes in their country?
h. Is being trapped more difficult for the miners or their families?
i. Did you think the rescue would succeed in such a short period of time?
j. Do you think the quantity of money spent on the rescue has been too much?
k. What do you think will happen to the miners from now on?
l. How do you think this experience will change the miners?
m. What do you think of the job of a miner?
n. Do you think the mines in Spain are safer than the Chilean ones?
o. What lessons should mines and governments need to learn from what happened in Chile?
p. Do you think this rescue has been an excellent opportunity for the Chilean president and his reputation?
PREPARING A DISCUSSION IS FUNDAMENTAL:
THIS MUST BE DONE IN TWO DIRECTIONS:
FIRST, YOU NEED TO LEARN NEW VOCABULARY AND EXPRESSIONS THAT YOU WILL HAVE TO USE FOR THE DISCUSSION.
SECONDLY, YOU HAVE TO PREPARE THE TOPIC BY LOOKING UP INFORMATION IN THE INTERNET, BOOKS, ENCYCLOPAEDIAS.
THIS WAY YOU WILL FEEL MUCH MORE CONFIDENT AND AT THE SAME TIME YOU WILL HAVE MUCH MORE TO TALK ABOUT.
FINAL TASK:
HERE IS ONE FINAL TASK THAT YOU MAY DO IN ORDER TO COVER THE FOUR SKILLS YOU SHOULD FOCUS ON WHEN LEARNING A LANGUAGE: LISTENING, READING, SPEAKING AND WRITING.
Write a composition and leave it in the blog as a comment to Session 4, I will edit it in the blog so that everybody can learn from other people´s opinions. Choose one of these two options:
- 'Mining is an old-fashioned job which should not exist in the 21st Century' Express your opinion.
- Write a magazine article about the Chile miners. Include imaginary interviews with them and their families.
Mining was very important in the last century. Thanks to this business many countries such as England, Germany, France, etc, managed to be very important economically. They extracted coal and it was the main source of supply to run all their industries. But times are changed and coal has been replaced for other source of supply for example, nuclear stations, petroleum, renewable energies.
ReplyDeleteMining is a job besides very dangerous, a long term is completely unhealthy as well. Many miners die each year of silicosis, an illness which is produced for staying long time breathing dust inside the mine. In developed countries mines are different from developing ones. The condition that the mineral is extracted in developed countries has changed a lot from the last century, while developing countries go on with the same ways they used to do many years ago.
Everybody knows that mining is one of the worst jobs someone can do, but what would happen if we closed all the mine and banned this sort of business? Well in my opinion we couldn’t, because many countries, even many cities here in Spain, live thanks mining, so there would be much more people unemployed who wouldn’t know what to do. I think it’d be an absolute disaster.
In my opinion, the solution could be, invest more money in security and learn miners how to protect themselves against silicosis, dangers inside the mine , and visit doctors more frequently to detect as soon as possible illnesses that could be serious disease afterwards.
To sum up, I agree with the opinion that mining is old-fashioned and it shouldn’t exist in the 21st century, but we have to be realistic and we have to know to live with this jobs until the people’s life were more important than the profile of a company.
Miguel Ruano.
Maybe the right question would be, ‘Is the 21st century going to be as we expected in the 20th century? After the Second World War, concepts as Human Rights or Welfare State were born and they were as an objective, above all in Western countries.
ReplyDeleteBut now the 21st century has come and the way to that objective is every day more difficult to go through. Western countries are fighting against the worst crisis in decades and they do not know if they will be able to give their citizens basic services as retirement or health.
The recently happened event, which has kept thirty-three miners trapped underground, is just an example that many places still exist over the world where people works in similar poor conditions as the 19th century, they work very hard to get a bad salary. Many of these places are becoming economic powers, as China or Brazil, because of their cheap labour and they have better prospects in the next years to beat countries as Japan or USA, traditionally the most important economic powers in the world.
These miners are being treated as heroes, but what could they do in this situation but to try to survive? In another country and/or another circumstance in which media or government had not been interested, they would surely have died. We can find a good example of this in China, where 2.600 miners died during 2009.
Natural resources such as coal are not endless. Nevertheless, there are other new sources of supply. Moreover, these can be even cheaper, less pollutant and easier to obtain.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, it is a pity when one has given its life in a business that is no longer profitable but “nothing stay still”. Definitely little by little mining should disappear in favor of renewable energies or nuclear stations.